With the ever-increasing miniaturization and density of electrical circuitry and corresponding electronic devices, it has become increasingly difficult to terminate small electrical wires, such as very fine insulated wires. The wires may be connected to the terminals of an electrical connector by such techniques as soldering, insulation displacement or the like. However, such techniques become extremely difficult, time consuming and labor intensive when the wires are extremely small or fine. In fact, insulation displacement techniques cannot even be used with extremely fine insulated wires because of the tendency to damage or even cut through the wires. Soldering such very fine wires requires elaborate and expensive equipment. It has been proposed to secure the wires to a preliminary wire maintenance member or backing member and to use this subassembly to facilitate terminating the very fine wires. However, even this approach has not proven effective in small electrical connectors.
The present invention is directed to solving these problems by providing a simple and effective electrical connector for providing adequate wire maintenance in terminating discrete electrical wires, such as very fine insulated wires.